Hospital visits with child (focus on dehydration)

Little Hospital Gown -- am I sick for thinking
this was too cute to not take a picture?

The saga continues ...

I generally don't like to post photos of myself or my child with our faces on this blog. However, I just had to this time to illustrate a point. Plus, it took forever to get them emailed from my phone to my account! Karma, don't bite me in the butt for this one! ... on second thought ... yes, I'm using the cheesy black bars.

Went to the doctor's office today because Monkey hasn't been peeing that much. They confirmed that he was dehydrated and needed to go to the hospital. So off we went.

Here are some things to remember when you go to the ER with your little one (some just apply if your child is dehydrated):

• Just because you are wheeling a stroller, doesn't mean the person that pulled into the parking lot at the same time you did will not race you to the counter to fill out the admission form first. We were called in first anyway! HA HA, woman with bad roots and unreadable poorly done shoulder tattoo!! (I get catty when anxious.)



• Do NOT sit any where near anyone else, especially their kids, unless you have no choice -- REGARDLESS if it's the last seat with a view of the waiting room television (my mistake). Inevitably, their kid will cough without their hand in front of their mouth about 2 feet from your child's face and/or stroller.



• DO bring plenty of toys and other supplies to the hospital to entertain and take care of your little one. I recommend cloth books and little toys if your child is an infant/toddler and going in for dehydration (see why later). For some reason, I actually had the sense to stop by the house and pick up a few more of these items prior to heading to the hospital. If your child uses a pacifier, bring a couple because they aim for the dirty floor where hundreds of sick people have tread. You'll thank yourself later.



• Bring pen and paper. Don't rely on the discharge instructions being as specific as what the doctor and multiple nurses will tell you (hence leading to confusion and memory loss when you arrive home and are trying to figure out what to do in order to prevent your child from going back to the hospital). I did not do this. And I SHOULD KNOW BETTER! My memory is crap!



• Take your stroller and/or car seat. Skip the car seat if your stroller reclines for baby to sleep. Consider it an extra set of hands and an absolute MUST if you and the babe are on your own for whatever reason. Thank goodness I thought of this! I surely would have been suffering greatly if I hadn't.



• If your hospital has them, ask if they have a room with a pediatric gurney available. I didn't realize they even existed and the kind nurses put me in a room with one this time (they didn't when we took him to the hospital at 4 months). It really helps to have at least a 2X3 foot area where you can block your mobile 7-month old (probably not needed for a 3-4 month old since they're not extremely mobile).



• I didn't have to do it this time but I've been in situations where I'd wished I had asked the nurse when we would be receiving our discharge papers the MOMENT treatment by the doctor was finished. The nurses this time just brought them in RIGHT WHEN Monkey was finishing his last IV treatment! It was AWESOME!




Monkey before the IV drip -- lethargic.



These tips are for strictly if your child is going in for dehydration



• Realize that they are most likely going to give them fluids intravenously and prepare mentally for that. That means the nurses will have to find a tiny little vine in a tiny little dehydrated body (can't be easy). This might take, oh I don't know, 1 ... 2 ... 3 tries (in our case it was 3). Then your child's arm will be placed on a soft splint and wrapped with that self-adhesive bandage stuff. This is primarily so your child will not chew and/or yank out the intravenous drip. But if they are dehydrated, they will not be too interested in it but still mildly amused (more to come on this).



• First they will take blood to evaluate the level of dehydration and then put a drip on while they wait for the results. Theory is a little more fluid couldn't hurt if they are only a little dehydrated.



• Depending on how dehydrated your child is, they will administer various amounts of fluid. If it is really severe and the kidneys have shut down due to the lack of hydration, your child will be staying overnight. Luckily, we were not in this predicament.



• For each bolus administered (HA HA -- remembered that medical term!), you will need to wait approximately 40-60 minutes. We needed two; the first took 60 minutes, the second they sped up to 40 minutes.



• I'm guessing it depends on the severity of the dehydration in your child, but at some point it's going to start working. And when I say "start working", I mean your little bundle of joy will become just that -- a little bundle of joy who now has complete interest and strong intent on yanking that tube, chewing on the ace bandage thingy, getting angry because they can't manuever with the splinted arm. This is also where the cloth books, small toys and pediatric gurney come in handy.




Monkey AFTER the IV drip -- bundle of joy.


• Ask for SPECIFIC feeding and changing instructions from your doctor. This is where that pen and paper will come into play. I got two different directions from the discharging nurse and the doctor. It seemed like I could play it down the middle. That is, until I got home and DH started finding holes in that theory, then when my memory failed me on what else was said and the discharge instructions didn't clear things up for us, we had to make not one, but two phone calls back to the ER to clarify. (DH is always getting onto me for not drilling the doctors like I'm in the army. I'm just not good at thinking of the follow up questions like he is. Or retaining pretty much anything but the basics.)

The local hospital here has been really great during the 4 times we've been to it in the past 7 months (once for Monkey's birth, twice for Monkey's health (this time and the time he fell out of his swing -- uh yeah, won't go into that one) and once for myself because I cut my hand while opening a new toy for Monkey (it was apparently mommy-proof packaging). The nurses and doctor were very nice and reassured me putting Monkey through that was the right thing to do. Which is EXACTLY what I needed to hear.

Overall, I think it was a positive experience and that I did a GREAT job taking Monkey to the hospital by myself. Yes, blatant pat on the back -- YAY ME! This wasn't the first time but the last time didn't involve multiple tries for a vein and I'm surprised that I didn't shed one tear or get majorly worked up in anyway. YES, dear, I will work on my interrogation skills with the doctors and nurses and this time, bring a pen and some paper. OR better yet! Maybe I'll buy one of those recorder things from that commercial! You know the one! Where the lady tells it her parking spot number and then joyfully plays it back ... again... and again ... and again.

Correction: We've been to the hospital FIVE times in the past 7 months. I forgot about the time when Monkey was only a week old and we were both nervous new parents who couldn't understand why he would cry for 4 hours straight and spit up everything he ate. Can anyone say GERD?

It's Contagious!

After our lil' Monkey came down with a stomach virus late Friday night, DH and I were pretty much exhausted the next day. Then about 3:00 am Sunday morning, I woke up with a burning feeling in my stomach and felt the need to burp every few minutes. Then it started for me. The vomiting, the diarrhea, the dizziness and that lasted pretty much all day.

DH was fantastic as he took care of our lil' Monkey, diarrhea diapers and all, for the entire day. However, at about 1:00 am this morning, he started feeling the symptoms. So now we're all home, DH fighting it and lil' Monkey and I are in recovery.

I hope next weekend is better!

Poor Monkey's Stomach Virus

This weekend has not been fun for poor Lil' Monkey. Last night, he went to bed at his usual time of 7:30 but little over 2 hours later we heard gurgled cries from his room. I went into the room and noticed something funny about his face (the only light we have in the room is very dim, on purpose). I felt his face and around his little wiggly body to realize that he had vomited EVERYWHERE. His face was in a pile of it and there were two more piles elsewhere in the crib. Practically the whole mattress was covered in it.

After turning on the hall light, I lifted him out and realized it was ALL OVER his poor little face! His eyelids and lashes were covered; it was in his nose, his ears and all down one arm. So I rushed to get his clothes off of him and yelled for DH to get off of The Game (I may be posting about this later) and help me with this mess.

It smelled awful and was the color of salmon (makes sense since he had carrots and bananas yesterday). Monkey was so upset and it took a lot for me not to cry at that moment due to the wretched smell and extreme empathy for him.

So after cleaning him up, putting a new sleeper on and breastfeeding him, changing his sheet and mattress pad, we put him back to bed. I could tell he was miserable and felt bad because he just lay in his crib afterward staring into space as I stroked his back and petted his head. Meanwhile, I'm having an inner struggle not to panic because I've inherited the worry-wart gene from my mother and find that my reactions are little severe sometimes when compared to others.

About hour and half later, he's crying again. I go into his room and this time, the bed is just wet. Really wet. No color just wetness. He had thrown up all of the breast milk which left about a 2 X 3 foot area of the mattress soaked, not to mention all of one side of the new sleeper. Out of the crib he comes and as I'm putting him down on the changing pad, he starts vomiting some more. I couldn't help but say "Oh my God" as it went all down the front of him and all over my shoulder, which alerted DH that something was wrong (he later protested this as I'm supposed to save those type of exclamations for broken legs and what he considers really serious problems). Then as I'm trying to quickly get the sleeper off of him, he pukes again all over the changing table -- this time with more salmon colored stuff. His little body was shaking as he did it and I could see the sheer terror in his eyes because he clearly didn't understand what was happening to him. So again, I yell for DH to get off The Game (apparently even though that type of exclamation is supposed to be saved for extreme emergencies it still wasn't enough to pull him away).

So I undress him, and while DH hoses him down in the tub, I take off the changing pad cover and wipe the whole thing down with disinfectant, wipe down the outside of his mattress with the disinfectant, change the sheet and mattress pad cover ("we're now down to 1 clean mattress pad cover", I note in my head), and we get him dressed again. This time he's in a onesie and pants since we figured this might give us chance to change only the onesie and save the pants. All of this accomplished within I'd say 7 minutes.

At this point, I'm ready to call the doctor or take him to the emergency room. So I call the answering service for our pediatrician and ask him to call us. Tom does some research on the Interweb. I read about vomiting in one of the 3 books we have on babies. And we wait.

Ten minutes later, Monkey is crying again and this time, he's pooped his pants. Only it's NOT really POOP but greenish, nauseous smelling watery stuff. And yes, it's ON the mattress. So out he comes, we wipe him down, we change his onesie AND HIS PANTS (so much for that plan), and I change the bed and mattress pad one more time.

We finally decide that maybe we'll just breastfeed him for a minute or two and see how that stays down since he's acting like he's starving. Then as I'm holding him upright after that feeding, he pukes again. New outfit!

By this time an hour has passed with no call from the pediatrician's office. So I call the service again. About 5 minutes later, the doctor finally calls. DH talks to him and he suggests that we go get Pedialyte (which we figured he would since we had already read this and I had already figured out which grocery store near us is open 24 hours). DH runs to our Harris Teeter, gets the fluid and we give lil' Monkey some.

Luckily THAT stayed down and Monkey only had diarrhea one more time prior to going to bed. He slept until 8 this morning which is 2 hours longer than usual but that was good for us since we were up later with him. I felt like a wondering zombie most of last night after the drama was over. I was still pretty tired when we got up this morning as well.

He had some more diarrhea at some point in the night and we had to change him again when he woke up, but lucky for me, only the sheet bit the dust this time. We took him to the doctor this morning and they said to continue with the Pedialyte until this afternoon and try a little bit of breast milk again. If that stays down, we're good. And so far, it has so we are all relieved. However, the doctor said he might have diarrhea for 7-10 more days! I hope not. I'm sure I'll be keeping everyone posted on that one. My poor hands are already cracked and bleeding from all of the hand washing I've been doing lately. I'm just glad things are looking up for lil' Monkey.

This Week's Funny Quote

Tim Gunn of Bravo TV's Project Runway (in reference to a contestant's skirt):

"It looks like a coffee filter ... or a maxi pad."

Gotta love Tim Gunn!

Politics Wednesday -- The Beginning

Growing up I was always told "Never talk about Politics, Religion, Sex or Money". Now I've never been shy in talking about Sex or Farts (most think that should be added to the "polite" list as well) and though I have yet to post something on either one of these, I'm sure they'll come up eventually. However, I've always tried to avoid the topic of Politics unless I'm with close friends whom I know either agree with my point of view or are kind enough to take it with a grain of salt should they disagree.

Recently talking amongst these select few, I realized that most of us are judging candidates on the sound bytes we happen to catch quickly via television or radio. Or sometimes it's just a feeling we get from the candidate. But with the 2008 election nearing, I feel compelled to DO something.

What IS that something? Educate myself and others about the election process, the issues and the candidates. Now I'm no expert by any means and I've forgotten quite a bit about the whole thing since my college years and my high school Political History class (sorry, Mr. Rudolph). And since I know my blog isn't read by many people, this will probably be more of an exercise to re-educate and inform myself.

However, I do hope some of you find the information I'll be posting each Wednesday a worth while read (if I do not have enough time or enough material, this might turn into a monthly thing). I realize this is testing fate and may incite flaming on this blog but I also know that the people who are currently reading this blog are decent folk with open minds.

Here are some general guidelines I'd like everyone to keep in mind while reading:

Try to read thoroughly with an open mind (and I will do my best to boil down the topics to a nice, digestible read without losing the flavor or meaning)

Think about your comments before you respond in anger (should that emotion arise within you)

Understand that I am NOT an expert and will most likely be gathering the information from multiple sources (I will try to cite those sources as often as I can)

I will always begin the post with "just the facts" and then reflect on their meaning for me (this section will be flagged with a "My Soapbox" graphic or title or something -- not quite sure yet).

Sometimes I will "give assignments" to see what others came up with which will offer an opportunity to shed light on things I may not have considered or missed (although feel free to share any valuable information you think is truly a contribution to the discussion at any time).

Speaking of which .... YOUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT:

Go to one or more of the "candidate quizzes" linked below to see where you stand right now. I say "or more" because I took a couple and came up with a few different answers, plus they're not all built the same. It is crucial that we start here since the primaries are about a month away for most people (sorry folks in Iowa, New Hampshire, Republicans in Wyoming ...).

USA Today Candidate Quiz
Glassbooth Candidate Quiz
Politalk Candidate Quiz

There's no need to comment about who your candidate turned out to be, however, just keep it in mind for the future. It will be fun to take this quiz again in a month to see if your candidate selections are still the same for the primaries. Then we'll do it all again for the November 4th election!

Lil' Monkey's first big trip

The day after Christmas, we travelled to my MIL's house which is about 5 hours away (that's with one bathroom break and no traffic). Prior to this trip, I have been making a conscious effort to put Monkey in the car everyday for a ride (or two) since he HATES being confined in the car seat. Sometimes he'll cry the whole way to the store, to the mall, to my office, etc. So DH and I were prepared for the most miserable ride of our lives to DH mother's house.

We devised a plan to leave at his bedtime -- equiped with new diaper and warm sleeper and after pumping him full of milk. But as anyone knows, even the perfect plan sometimes strays when executed. And for anyone who knows DH and I, they know we ALWAYS leave late. So the 6:30 departure turned into a 7:15 departure and for the first 15 minutes, Monkey was very fussy. However, he suddenly just fell asleep and stayed asleep for 2 hours! And for each stop we made (2 each on the way down and the way back), he would wake up, get a new diaper and pretty much go back to sleep within a half hour! And during that half hour of wakefulness, he would just sit in his car seat making cute little noises! Such a GOOD BOY!

Pictured to the right is a photo of him getting an impromptu bath in Grandmom's kitchen sink. We had a little difficulty getting him to sleep in the playpen while at Grandmom's house, however, he did well considering. I'm just so proud of him and majorly relieved that this trip wasn't the complete nightmare I expected.

Apple Customer Service -- FANTASTIC!

Just before the Holidays, I had the unfortunate incident of my trackpad acting up and the button locking on my MacBook Pro. After some personal investigation of the computer and finding a post about battery "swelling" causing odd issues on MacBooks, I realized that I too had an ailing Mac suffering from just this problem (my battery pictured below ... sorry photo is a little blurry).

I performed a search within the support section of Apple's web site and found a knowledge base record with the suggestion to make a reservation at an Apple Store "Genius Bar". There were plenty of reservation spots and I made the reservation for the next afternoon.

So the next day, Mom and I packed up Monkey and headed to the Apple Store (which is in a very popular mall near here, so I prepared mentally for the crowded stores and general stress-making nature of this adventure). We went into the store and as I approached the Genius Bar, I noticed that it truly was a "bar", complete with stools for customers to sit on while waiting. When I got there, all of the stools were taken but within 3 minutes, a person's iPod issue was resolved and I had a stool!

At the Genius Bar, they place the first name and last initial of each person with a reservation onto a screen behind the bar showing who is next. When I arrived, I was third in line with a Tony S. behind me. Okay here the story goes into a tangent ... the Tony S. was Tony Snow! When I first came up to the bar, I saw him and said to myself, "Is that ...?" but after reading the screen I realized I was correct! Now the folks at the Genius Bar DID take Tony S. prior to me but I figured that's okay, since he's a bit of celebrity for those who have ever paid attention to White House press conferences.

Anyway, back to the real story ... shortly after they had worked on Tony S.'s laptop, they called my name. The lady who helped me (I wish I remembered her name) was very nice, knowledgeable and didn't give me any sales pitch or anything! She simply tried out the laptop for herself, immediately recognized the issue, found a new battery in their stock supply and popped it in (that took approximately 4 minutes total)! No fooling around! She even tested the new battery to make sure that it was indeed charging correctly. All of this wonderfull service and the new battery was free! Nevermind that the battery should have been free since this was a known issue. I've just had such BAD customer service elsewhere recently that I figured this might go horribly as well. However, I'm so happy with the experience that 9 days later I just had to post about it!